MUSIC FOR THE MASSES

Composer aims to ‘reach as many people as possible’

The Norwegian-born composer Ola Gjeilo believes in populist music.

“It is focused on the listener and wants to be very communicative and accessible whatever it is,” he said in an interview in advance of his appearance at the Music and Beyond Festival on July 15, where he will perform and his music will be highlighted.

“That’s incredibly important to me, that what I write is something that has the potential to touch the listener and be meaningful to them without being manipulative or sentimental. Something that very deeply wants to communicate with people and reach as many people as possible.”

It is perhaps fitting, then, that he writes choral music. If there is a musical form that is populist it is in choir, where anyone from any walk of life can take part — at church or on the grandest stage. Gjeilo has four albums to his credit and his choral music has been recorded by, among others, the Choir of Trinity College Cambridge and the U.K.-based ensemble VOCES8, for whom Gjeilo (pronounced Yay-lo) is composer-in-residence.

This populist inclination is also rooted in Gjeilo’s beginnings as a musician in a household where his parents were avid and eclectic listeners and players.

“They were very discerning. They weren’t professional musicians, but both of them wanted art to touch them and not be cerebral for the sake of being cerebral. They wanted to be emotionally honest.

“That’s something that is important for me, too. I don’t want to pretend to be something I’m not musically, which can be an easy temptation.”

This meant that the young Gjeilo was exposed to everything from classical to jazz to pop. He also picked up an interest in film music.

His commitment began at about five years old when he started studying the piano — and where he exhibited an ability for, and an interest in, improvisation.

“I started improvising very early. I have always been drawn to that in a lot of different forms. I’ve been very inspired by artists who use improvisation in what they do.”

One of his idols is the great American jazz pianist Keith Jarrett, whom he considers the “greatest piano improviser of all time.” He also respects the American jazz guitarist Pat Metheny and his group.

Then there is his regard for the film composer Thomas Newman (The Road to Perdition, The Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty) who leaves room in his scores for improvisation.

“That’s why his scores are very fluid and have a very unique sound.”

Gjeilo also sees inspiration in the work of Canadian architect Frank Gehry and the American glass artist Dale Chihuly.

“I am drawn to a process that is more intuitive than cerebral or pre-planned.”

His writing process begins with improvisation, he says, and he has also added an improvisational element to his own performances.

“A few years ago, I started improvising on piano over my own a cappella pieces.”

That has led to an interesting conundrum.

One of those performances was captured on YouTube and features Gjeilo playing along with a choir singing his piece Ubi Caritas. It has been seen more than 200,000 times.

In fact, many YouTube videos of his music being performed have been seen thousands and thousands of times.

“We released a video with me improvising over a choir singing Ubi Caritas and it’s had a lot of YouTube views.

“As a result, people started doing their own improvisations.” That prompted him to do an official detailed transcription of his improvisation.

It was hard to transcribe and took a long time to do, but Gjeilo “wanted it to be done right. I prefer they play my improv. I don’t want them composing on top of my piece.”

Gjeilo is an independent-minded artist.

He likes to listen to film music, for example, and would like to do a score some day, but “I do love concert music because it gives you so much freedom. You can write whatever you want, but when you write for a movie you have a boss that tells you what they want, what it is supposed to be.”

While he has written symphonic and chamber music, “my main two areas are choral music and piano music. I don’t conduct because I have always wanted to play the piano with groups.”

And because of demand for new choral works, he’s been able to be a full-time composer.

“There is a lot of commissioning in choral, especially in America. It is a fantastic place to be a composer.”

His focus on choral composition started after high school where a teacher encouraged him to try his hand.

“Choral music is a great place to start when you are learning to write classical music. I naturally gravitated to it. … It is natural, organic, to start with the human voice.”

In Norway, Gjeilo was influenced by British and especially American music, so a move to come to the U.S. to study at Juilliard seemed like a natural decision.

“I moved here in 2001,” just a few weeks before Sept. 11. It was a bumpy start, but “I felt quickly very at home in New York and in American culture.”